Bad decisions are bad decisions and the worst part of all is that is almost impossible to go back cause people are already spoiled from these decisions and the community have dramatically changed because of these decisions..

So true, & by 'bad decisions' this poster is referring I presume to things like LFR, RDF, or even cross-realm BGs or flying mounts/arenas(!) before that, all of which have contributed to some measure of playerbase social desensitization, reduced sense of belonging & actually caring about their gameplay. Even if Blizz wanted to remove those features, it's too late now. There'd be tons of players coming back, but waaay more actually quitting suddenly, this being the proverbial nail in the coffin on their late disenchantment with the state of the game. Indeed, for every sensible detractor to these accommodating, casual play convenience tools that make the gameworld 'smaller', there's a dozen people to be found who live & die by these features, that were born & raised spoiled w/ the game working this way, and taking that away from them would be catastrophic to their continued stay.

There are significant differences between a full sandbox or 'sandpark' game, & a sandboxy themepark - WoW would benefit enormously from becoming a lot more of the latter than the near-full themepark it is now, but ironically enough, would not benefit as much from trying to be an actual sandbox or nearly such. In fact the latter wouldn't even be feasible, from a technical, financial, even legal (shareholders etc) point of view - this is exactly what happened with Star Wars Galaxies several years ago, what they call the 'Pre-CU disaster' (in reverse, of course - they had basically a sandbox design, & because WoW's themepark got SO explosively successful in 2004-2005, recklessly turned their game around to be a cheapened themepark). If they did that with WoW, turn a full themepark and its millions of subscribers relatively content with the current state of affairs, into a complete sandbox, that'd be just as irresponsible and backstabby as the SW:G Pre-CU failed moneygrubbing gambit, no matter how gloriously more dynamic & engaging the non-static gameplay naturally emergent from sandbox content is.

See that's what I mean when I emphasize there are always ways to make emergent dynamic gameplay adjustments to a themepark design while not damaging/removing what is already existing, so fewer people complain, you didn't throw the baby w/ the bathwater to implement the sandboxy features. This touches upon what Ravenmoon said about 'raising an empire' etc, that type of play is absolutely engaging riotous fun and yet, just has a really hard time being realistically, holistically integrated into the aged systems of an old classic themepark like WoW. This may understandably seem terse of me to say or contradictory to what I'd always been advocating, but it's important because throughout the last decade in the reign of the themepark design in MMO space, time & again some very well-intentioned people have suggested that devs implement such radical sandbox features out & out, and it is unfortunately those outlandish suggestions that have emboldened dev teams to lump all dynamic, undirected, emergent content design into the same "unrealistic, out of touch with the 95% rest of themeparks' Halo/CoD-type playerbase" basket, thus leaving no room for more moderate steps in emergent sandbox gameplay to have any chance at the development table.

Actual empire-building & permanent or even mid-term temporary political power shifts/NPC disappearances just doesn't mesh with what the devs & executives have had in mind for the core design of this game, for a long time. So you have to find ways to implement some fun stuff to do, or different ways to do existing stuff, that won't clash, but to the contrary, that will harmoniously meshwith the existing core vision for how the game's themepark systems have always functioned.

For example, one of the ways I envisage dealing with the "..So I'm finally max-level.. what now? I mean, I was having so much stimulation, so much fun every level I was gaining, always a new spell/talent/glyph here, new items/power/feature there, and now, I'm just resigned to a much slower, repetitive gear treadmill till I gouge these eyes out to static boredom..?? =/" is the following :

~> XP costs when dying, but only under certain circumstances/in certain areas.
~> XP costs to do really engaging, designed-to-be-long-cooldowns things in the game, but mostly things that are cosmetic or affect world zones, not raid readiness or pvp advantage in any fashion or else it starts becoming a 'requirement', and thus giving an unfair, unreasonable incentive to play 24/7 in order to have as much recurring XP as possible to spend on say, more powerful flasks for a raid or a temporary speed boost in a BG.
~> An even more radical, sandboxy way to handle them would be the capacity to spend XP points, or HP, on the fly, in addition to the regular mana/class resource pool costs, when casting a spell in a world zone (so it leaves endgame PvP/PvE unaffected), to have a more spectacular (mechanical & cosmetic), on-cooldown (to prevent abuse) effect.

This would allow people a balanced, non-endgame-disrupting reason to do stuff that gives them XP even though they're already max-level (losing XP would never de-level you, that's cool-sounding but against Blizz core design..I know), perhaps even by having to use an item to give the buff that enables the acquisition of such post-max XP points, an item that only works in world zones, thus sending more players out there instead of staying in capitals to wait for their queue & troll tradechat 24/7.

There are many active topics about this already. Not sure why you felt the need to contribute another, aside from feeling the need to say that you think WoW has bad graphics. Which you could have easily done in one of the many topics about WoW's graphics.

I quit because it’s not the same game I signed up for in 2005. I prefer the days when instances only had one difficulty level and progression was teamwork over weeks/months to reach a brand new boss, not spending months killing the same bosses over and over again on multiple difficulty levels.

Saying that, those days are gone, players like me are an old breed, and they did what they was probably the best for the game now -- but it’s not really for me anymore.

Compare it to all the more recent games, what's WoW missing? - it looks OLD .. but is it the vintage kind of old wine feel to you? or is it more like old people's home old feel?

imo, do a WoW 2, wrap up this one in the next 2-3 years and relaunch the game and this time with an engine they can upgrade.. a more long term vision.

I'm not sure if any amount of tweaking would make a difference... do you know of anything blizzard could do to attract your friends that quit?

Are you serious? Again with this argument? Has anyone seen minecraft? Blizzard has made wow in such a way that it could survive an infinite amount of years. Hell even if we get to a point where quantem computing is available to the consumer market and most games happen inside your head they could still keep the game afloat with the latest and greatest tech. The only reason blizzard doesnt always update shit. Is because people like it how it is for now. So they take things piece by piece.

The games age has nothing to do with its sub drop . Anyone who thinks that is ignorant to the fact that no one likes the Asian theme in a western fantasy mmo. Also the way the panderan were portrayed made the game feel more childish and immature. It felt like I was playing through a disney cartoon(ironic I know).

Primairy reason for dropping subs is fatigue with the genre and more competition that targets the casual/pvp players who dont care about quality pve content.
As long as there is no worthy competitor when it comes to (pve) content wow will keep having a lot of subs, the biggest problem is the console generation thats active now, they dont own a pc and they shun games that have a learning curve and need more then a small attention span.

Are you serious? Again with this argument? Has anyone seen minecraft? Blizzard has made wow in such a way that it could survive an infinite amount of years. Hell even if we get to a point where quantem computing is available to the consumer market and most games happen inside your head they could still keep the game afloat with the latest and greatest tech. The only reason blizzard doesnt always update shit. Is because people like it how it is for now. So they take things piece by piece.

The games age has nothing to do with its sub drop . Anyone who thinks that is ignorant to the fact that no one likes the Asian theme in a western fantasy mmo. Also the way the panderan were portrayed made the game feel more childish and immature. It felt like I was playing through a disney cartoon(ironic I know).

I don't want to take away from your point, but:
-minecraft isn't really timeless, it will inevitably shift to a voxel based engine sometime in the future. It's game play is improved by having a limited item size and shape. WoW's appearance, good or bad, isn't a gameplay decision so much as a market share decision. Their graphics are solutions to different problems.

-quantum computing removes the necessity for binary and allows certain types of functions to be skipped entirely since you can compute using that functions real world analogue. A program can't survive that transition; I don't see too much interest in binary emulators at that point.

but... that's all hyperbole, so I'll ignore that.

The game's age has a lot to do with the sub drop. People are leaving cause they always have, regardless of any other factors; and nobody is joining because they have tons of games to choose from that fit a variety of income levels and device ownerships. Also, WoW comes with a fairly negative cultural outlook, whether or not that's fair, and a 400$ per expansion price tag. Whether or not it's good value, it doesn't look like a good value to those who would rather not press themselves to get their money's worth.

There's a reason why buffets aren't the most expensive meal in town, nobody really wants to gorge themselves to get their moneys worth, and that's really how every subscription MMO is set up.

So true, & by 'bad decisions' this poster is referring I presume to things like LFR, RDF, or even cross-realm BGs or flying mounts/arenas(!) before that, all of which have contributed to some measure of playerbase social desensitization, reduced sense of belonging & actually caring about their gameplay. Even if Blizz wanted to remove those features, it's too late now. There'd be tons of players coming back, but waaay more actually quitting suddenly, this being the proverbial nail in the coffin on their late disenchantment with the state of the game. Indeed, for every sensible detractor to these accommodating, casual play convenience tools that make the gameworld 'smaller', there's a dozen people to be found who live & die by these features, that were born & raised spoiled w/ the game working this way, and taking that away from them would be catastrophic to their continued stay.

There are significant differences between a full sandbox or 'sandpark' game, & a sandboxy themepark - WoW would benefit enormously from becoming a lot more of the latter than the near-full themepark it is now, but ironically enough, would not benefit as much from trying to be an actual sandbox or nearly such. In fact the latter wouldn't even be feasible, from a technical, financial, even legal (shareholders etc) point of view - this is exactly what happened with Star Wars Galaxies several years ago, what they call the 'Pre-CU disaster' (in reverse, of course - they had basically a sandbox design, & because WoW's themepark got SO explosively successful in 2004-2005, recklessly turned their game around to be a cheapened themepark). If they did that with WoW, turn a full themepark and its millions of subscribers relatively content with the current state of affairs, into a complete sandbox, that'd be just as irresponsible and backstabby as the SW:G Pre-CU failed moneygrubbing gambit, no matter how gloriously more dynamic & engaging the non-static gameplay naturally emergent from sandbox content is.

See that's what I mean when I emphasize there are always ways to make emergent dynamic gameplay adjustments to a themepark design while not damaging/removing what is already existing, so fewer people complain, you didn't throw the baby w/ the bathwater to implement the sandboxy features. This touches upon what Ravenmoon said about 'raising an empire' etc, that type of play is absolutely engaging riotous fun and yet, just has a really hard time being realistically, holistically integrated into the aged systems of an old classic themepark like WoW. This may understandably seem terse of me to say or contradictory to what I'd always been advocating, but it's important because throughout the last decade in the reign of the themepark design in MMO space, time & again some very well-intentioned people have suggested that devs implement such radical sandbox features out & out, and it is unfortunately those outlandish suggestions that have emboldened dev teams to lump all dynamic, undirected, emergent content design into the same "unrealistic, out of touch with the 95% rest of themeparks' Halo/CoD-type playerbase" basket, thus leaving no room for more moderate steps in emergent sandbox gameplay to have any chance at the development table.

Actual empire-building & permanent or even mid-term temporary political power shifts/NPC disappearances just doesn't mesh with what the devs & executives have had in mind for the core design of this game, for a long time. So you have to find ways to implement some fun stuff to do, or different ways to do existing stuff, that won't clash, but to the contrary, that will harmoniously meshwith the existing core vision for how the game's themepark systems have always functioned.

For example, one of the ways I envisage dealing with the "..So I'm finally max-level.. what now? I mean, I was having so much stimulation, so much fun every level I was gaining, always a new spell/talent/glyph here, new items/power/feature there, and now, I'm just resigned to a much slower, repetitive gear treadmill till I gouge these eyes out to static boredom..?? =/" is the following :

~> XP costs when dying, but only under certain circumstances/in certain areas.
~> XP costs to do really engaging, designed-to-be-long-cooldowns things in the game, but mostly things that are cosmetic or affect world zones, not raid readiness or pvp advantage in any fashion or else it starts becoming a 'requirement', and thus giving an unfair, unreasonable incentive to play 24/7 in order to have as much recurring XP as possible to spend on say, more powerful flasks for a raid or a temporary speed boost in a BG.
~> An even more radical, sandboxy way to handle them would be the capacity to spend XP points, or HP, on the fly, in addition to the regular mana/class resource pool costs, when casting a spell in a world zone (so it leaves endgame PvP/PvE unaffected), to have a more spectacular (mechanical & cosmetic), on-cooldown (to prevent abuse) effect.

This would allow people a balanced, non-endgame-disrupting reason to do stuff that gives them XP even though they're already max-level (losing XP would never de-level you, that's cool-sounding but against Blizz core design..I know), perhaps even by having to use an item to give the buff that enables the acquisition of such post-max XP points, an item that only works in world zones, thus sending more players out there instead of staying in capitals to wait for their queue & troll tradechat 24/7.

always a fascinating read. The problem goes beyond the current gaemes to the boards and their investors. Investors want guarnatees, working models, ahte risky ventures, game developers therefore only pitch models that smash records, i.e. themepark WoW that smashed all previous records, and thus develop games accordingly to similar too we dub them wow clones.

Lack of courage, lack of imagination, they have no idea what made wow so successful, and fear any deviation would be consinged to failure, perhaps investors won't buy any ther pitch other htan the proven model - a failing of the current mindset of the itmes, unless an annonymous starter up or wildcard game company takes the plunge like blizzard did, and becomes a wild success, then you have the big guns like EA and Activision releasing funds to quickly make siilar games and eat into that market share, or simply acquire said new starter up company.

THis may explain why we have no such innovation in the upcoming mMO games, their to scared to deviate that much from the wow theme park model. And as you quite nicely put, Blizzard can't take wow in that direciton anymore, giving a static gameplay and feeling of boredom thatkeeps eating away at their subs.

also they are quite relecutant to make radical changes of any other sort fearing that too much change would lose them subscribers , they gamebled with Mop as good as it was, they got tons of compalints from people dropping subs that there was too much change.. interesting, the change wasn't near enough as radical as it needed to be, yet it appears, at least in their minds to have lost them tons of subs.

expect a very "traditional"expansion announcement next Friday.

XP losses system won't nearly be enough, becuas eit doesn't even solve the issue of what next to do, whiles on the one hand that in itself gives greater value to raids/BGs etc, yet it doesn't change what is there to actually do tha'ts different, you're still spamming the same raids/dungeons for 1.5 yearss, with something as little as 1 new raid every few months and little else.

Sadly I feel nothing but a new game will do at this point, and I've argued, while the franchise is still very much revered is when they should be building a new WOW and askiging all those questions.

They are powerful enough now, no longer the starter-up and have the resources themselves to fund a project in a direction they fel fit, they don't have to impress investors ofr shareholders with models based on wow, They made WoW, it was a huge success, the money spinners would back their judgement on new directions.

A run down of some of the things i'd love in a new WoW

Obvious:
Engine that can be updated easily, ofc bigger world, better models, better eerything graphically
They have to make generating quests a lot easier so they can add a lot of stuff quickly
Give players the ability to make their own quests - guilds send people on quests to join
expand the core from hey, i g out do stuff, get xp to level and do raids:
which may include political plays, wargames, dynamic territories that change
content - WoW does create curiousityabout the warcraft niverse, with no means to find that out in game, -
i'm fine with linear questing, as long as it's not the only type: multi-tiered questlines, not just faction based but class based even quests for spells/abilities, race based too, profession based too that show a lot, - if every npc was interactable and gave you some piece of iniformation about the area, it's history, it's bestiary, it's current status etc there'd be a treasure trove of info for people
aLl that level cap stuff i mentioned in the previous post, including the power plays, invasions, territory acquisitions etc.
Everything needs to be better, smarter - adaptive class system (RIFT), companions and legacy system (ToR)

okay.. i could go on for a while, the list is huge, and i'm not designing a game atm, so i'll leave it there for now

1 - No community since LFR/wotlk. Community died after wotlk. Nowadays its just Empty friends list and guilds just for perks.

2 - Class homgeneralisarion. Classes play too similar, classes loose their niche spells.
Too many classes have stealth mechanics now for example.
Classes no longer have weaknesses: paladins have sprints for example and rogues have aoe. Back in the day, you'd have to work togther to cover each others weaknesses but now you can pretty much do it yourself.

3 - Progression is too quick with existing catch up mechanics, you can actually skip (old) content, and the game gets boring quicker. A much better system would :
~ have been to simple have more loot drop more oftern from lower level content after each patch to gear up quicker.
~ Introduce a damage buff to older raids
~ Lower the lock out period to lower level raids, so you can raid it more oftern.

4 - Items no longer feel epic.
Why bother to get a "heroic" version when it looks the exact same as the LFR version and you've already seen the content. LFR is like completing the game with cheat codes, sure its fun but there's no desire to replay something you've done - just to get better loot, to reraid what you've just done especially without a community (see point 1).

5 - Shared 25 and 10 man loot and lock outs = less PUGs (see point 1 and 4) and less time spent raiding.

6 - Poor class design or broken classes (see point 2). Some players feeling that their favourite class is no longer disersirable or compitant in pvp or pve and they do not wish to reroll.

7 - Transmodification has destroyed the incentive to get new gear that "looks good" primarily because it doesn't look good and youll want to transmod it anyway.

8 - Stat and damage inflation.
This makes getting new gear hugely unappealing as there is no longer any emotional connection with it or sense of power.
Numbers are now so high they lack meaning, both for damage output and for stats on gear. I couldnt tell you what the dps of my weapons say any more, I don't even look at the stats of my gear any more. I just look at the item level or tier and assume its an upgrade.

9 - Percentages instead of numbers
I liked the days back when blessing of might or battle shout gave you X amount of attack power, or hemo increased damage taken to the target by X per charge. It was more interesting than "kings buffs you 5%". Also see point 2.

10- Legandaries becoming "requirements" for raids
They're supposed to be rare and hard to get. I'm not saying legendaries are easy to get but the cloak isn't exactly rare amy more. I remember I'd see a person with warglavies and you'd tell your friends about him just so they'd fly to shattarath and inspect him - that doesn't happen any more because of point 1, 3, 4, 7, and 8 at least.

11 - Lack of healers and tanks available for a raid.
You cant just get 10 players togther for a raid, you've then got to find tanks and healers. Not necessarily a drawback, I can't suggest an alternative, but it is a complication and an obstruction into exploring new content.

I pretty much agree with all of these general points as being contributary to the sub drop. Except maybe point 7 which i cant see having much effect at all on the big picture.

Point 9 is an interesting observation... why did Blizzard lose the % stats on active effects?

It has nothing to do w/the age of the game, it does have to do with the fact that Blizzard has not been innovating as much as they should have. The game has changed since 2004, but things like the questing/raiding model is still the same. It makes the game stagnant for older players, and doesn't entice new players to try the game, when other quality games are offering more features and better graphics for a much lower start-up cost or for free.

Actual empire-building & permanent or even mid-term temporary political power shifts/NPC disappearances just doesn't mesh with what the devs & executives have had in mind for the core design of this game, for a long time. So you have to find ways to implement some fun stuff to do, or different ways to do existing stuff, that won't clash, but to the contrary, that will harmoniously meshwith the existing core vision for how the game's themepark systems have always functioned.

One important point to add to this observation is that Wow doesnt have any meaningful difference between the 2 factions anymore. Basically speaking there is no part of the game which pits the 2 factions against each other directly in any form of competition.

The only place i can think of where ur up against the opposing faction is in Battlegrounds.

Because of this important point its almost impossible to suddenly make a massive game design change and introduce new concepts which put Alliance up against Horde for "temprary political power shifts". Gone are the days the factions actually mean anything outside of the story itself...

- The game is 10yrs old (since development)
- the engine has been tweaked but is dated
- players have invested 20 to 100 hours a week, every week each year, for 9yrs and are burnt out
- post-wrath players are not the same breed of gamers as vanilla players. "PW" players come and go more frequently (which is a millennial gen. issue that every business is struggling to deal with)
- 9yrs is plenty of time to understand blizzard's design mechanics and to be accustom to the raiding atmosphere. (which is why people complain about a challenge and miss the "new smell" wow used to have)
- people have been playing so long that they know how patches and different tiers work. So they unsub once they get their fill (aka gear) and come back when the new stuff is out.... or stay away until next expansion because QQ their class is now nerfed

^^all of this has been stated by blizzard before in, like, a half dozen blue posts

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Celista

It has nothing to do w/the age of the game, it does have to do with the fact that Blizzard has not been innovating as much as they should have. The game has changed since 2004, but things like the questing/raiding model is still the same. It makes the game stagnant for older players, and doesn't entice new players to try the game, when other quality games are offering more features and better graphics for a much lower start-up cost or for free.

for me, after trying TERA, it was the monster mechanics and boss fights that made me really question blizzard's model. Thats why I love the Timless isle because those mobs are the closest things to TERA's combat that WoW has right now. After playing TERA I was watching MoP beta boss fights and I was like "....wow, it just doesn't feel the same anymore" and what really got me was this:
- large, unused room with stationary boss
- boss does nothing until a phase is reached, or certain percentile and then its just an animation or he/she/it moves tot he center of the room to strike a pose
- only movement players make it stacking/spreading or repositioning boss

Thats it.... for about 90% of all wow bosses and mobs, from the boars of elwynn forest to the depths of SoO. Boss fights in TERA feel like a Legend of zelda or god of war battle compared to this. But there is an exception (as i said, only 90%) with some bosses being active. Heroic Lich King is a good example imo.

- The game is 10yrs old (since development)
- the engine has been tweaked but is dated
- players have invested 20 to 100 hours a week, every week each year, for 9yrs and are burnt out
- post-wrath players are not the same breed of gamers as vanilla players. "PW" players come and go more frequently (which is a millennial gen. issue that every business is struggling to deal with)
- 9yrs is plenty of time to understand blizzard's design mechanics and to be accustom to the raiding atmosphere. (which is why people complain about a challenge and miss the "new smell" wow used to have)
- people have been playing so long that they know how patches and different tiers work. So they unsub once they get their fill (aka gear) and come back when the new stuff is out.... or stay away until next expansion because QQ their class is now nerfed

^^all of this has been stated by blizzard before in, like, a half dozen blue posts

And you'll notice what's completely missing from that list of possibilities: even the possibility of anything Blizzard has done being responsible for any sub-loss whatsoever. "Your investment portfolio lost half it's value? Well, with the market being what it is, that can happen. It's certainly not the fault of anyone here who's responsible for actually managing your money!"

And you'll notice what's completely missing from that list of possibilities: even the possibility of anything Blizzard has done being responsible for any sub-loss whatsoever. "Your investment portfolio lost half it's value? Well, with the market being what it is, that can happen. It's certainly not the fault of anyone here who's responsible for actually managing your money!"

Completey agree... its VERY niave to believe the only reasons Wow subs r falling r the reasons Blizzard publicly state.

Fact is that game design and direction will definiteley have an impact... Blizzard would never discuss this in public... EVER!

Completey agree... its VERY niave to believe the only reasons Wow subs r falling r the reasons Blizzard publicly state.

Fact is that game design and direction will definiteley have an impact... Blizzard would never discuss this in public... EVER!

I could just imagine the fury in fan forums if they did. Everyone who hates the game would feel fueled by it and rip into everything else about the game. I can't say I blame them.

Referring back the post your quoting: I'm a big fan of people who post the product life cycle image. They don't talk about what caused the rise to tip when it did, they don't talk about iterating on a product being a way to ameliorate some of those losses, they don't talk about the crest to crest changes in various expansions. They throw the thing up like it's a piece of information and not a tool for interpreting information. It's like people who talk about supply and demand and don't realize that it's a basic chart that's part of a system of charts that all interrelate and are derived with a few basic assumptions about the market that can't ever be perfectly true.

It's why google makes such a crummy teacher. you ask a question and it spits out the answer (hopefully) with none of the background of that information.